


Infelicity

by Alona



Category: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo | Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 13:02:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15908799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alona/pseuds/Alona
Summary: An interior of the Morcerf household.





	Infelicity

"Madame, I must speak with you on a most pressing—on a most embarrassing—subject." 

"Please sit, monsieur. I am prepared to hear you."

Fernand sat, then gave a single, decisive shake of his head. "I will not speak of this in the presence of the vicomte." There was a waver in the way he pronounced these last words that told Mercédès more than he had meant to reveal. 

She looked to the window, where Albert was sitting on the rug, reading a book of fairy tales or, what was more likely, studying the illustrations. He was six years old; the child, formerly so exuberant and playful, had lately been going through a period of reserve and almost mournfulness, as though some intimation of adult life had come to him and left an inward wound. Mercédès could never see the new gravity behind his eyes without feeling afraid, and being gripped by a wild and impossible desire to defend her son against she could not have said what evils.

She rose and went to him, kneeling beside him on the rug. "Albert, my son, will you go join your nurse? M. de Morcerf wishes to say a few words to me in private." She spoke with her usual calm, holding out her hand for the child to take. 

"I will go, mother," he answered, pressing her hand. "But I can come back when you and M. le comte have spoken, can't I?" He darted a quick, shy look towards his father. "I can see better by this window than the one in the nursery." 

"Of course you can return, my son," said Mercédès. She accompanied him to the door, and only when they had reached it together did he release her hand. 

Albert turned to go, lingered indecisive in the doorway, then turned back. "Good day, father," he said, with a small bow, and then he was gone. 

"What is it you wished to speak to me about, monsieur?" Mercédès asked, retaking her seat. 

"You have just have an excellent demonstration of it, madame la comtesse." Fernand appeared uncomfortable, almost nervous of his wife. "You are teaching your son to hate me." 

"I!" cried Mercédès. "I, teach my son to hate his father? Monsieur, you are unjust. The reserve you perceive and ascribe to dislike is only a passing mood. And then, consider: you have spent much of Albert's childhood abroad for your service. Consider how imposing your martial air can appear to a child of his age. God preserve me from doing anything so unnatural as teaching a child to hate his father." 

Fernand looked at her doubtfully, cringing before her in private as it would have shamed him to do before anyone else in the world. There seemed to him to be some hidden mockery behind her words, but he could not see it in her calm, sad face, nor hear it in her gentle, lightly agitated voice. "Madame, excuse me. I have upset you, and I did not intend it. I hope you will pardon me." 

"You have my pardon, Fernand," Mercédès said, with a hint of pride in her voice and the carriage of her head that recalled to her husband's mind the old Mercédès of the Catalans, for years now veiled under the gracious comtesse de Morcerf. "I believe it was settled between us, though never spoken outright, that I should have direction over the raising of my son. It is a mother's privilege, and my consolation." 

Fernand trembled. "Madame, I have already asked your pardon for presuming to raise this subject. You have granted it to me, I believe sincerely. In the future—" With a return of boldness. "—in the future I hope I will have no reason to return to a subject so unpleasant to you. Madame, I leave you to your peace." He rose and bowed, and Mercédès nodded, dismissing him. 

No sooner had Fernand left the room than Albert rushed back in. Mercédès wondered if it was merely chance, or if he had been watching nearby, waiting for the comte de Morcerf to leave the room. She even had a moment's worry in case Albert should have heard the conversation, but when she examined his face she saw no sign of it. He smiled at her, looking more cheerful than he had of late. 

"I'm not to ask what M. le comte said, am I, mother?" 

"No, Albert, that is between the two of us. Listen, my son: what do you think of your father?"

The answer came so easily, and with so little surprise at the question, that Mercédès divined that Albert had been pondering it on his own. 

"I respect and admire M. le comte," he said as though reciting a lesson. "I am proud of him, because he has done great deeds. I love him, because he is my father." With a hint of doubt, he added, "Is that right, mother?"

"Perfectly right, Albert," Mercédès answered. "Always remember to respect, admire, and love your father." She could see a start of worry in the child's eyes and hugged him to her briefly. He returned to the window and his storybook, but more than once, when he thought he was unnoticed, Mercédès surprised him looking at her thoughtfully. 

Watching him with jealous anxiety, she asked herself whether there was not some truth in what Fernand had said. Had she not one day, years ago, upon first seeing the new little life that she had brought into the world, made a solemn and secret vow that Albert would be her son, hers before anyone else's? She could not wholly acquit herself of having made such a vow; if she had made it, she was not certain she could let it go. She could only act so that Fernand would have nothing to reproach her for. 

She noticed, reviewing the conversation they had just had, that the comte de Morcerf had not once dared to refer to Albert as his son before her.


End file.
